"It happened in the middle of the night. The ship was leaning over for a long time because there was a fire and everyone went upstairs. They were pumping out the fuel from the bottom of the boat and then the boat tipped over and I went into the water."

Rifat was working as a driver in Saudi Arabia until last week, when he began the trip home to see his family in Egypt. He is one of the lucky ones. "I was in the water until 9 o'clock at night the next day." He talks slowly, looking a decade older than his 25 years.

Safaga, on the Red Sea coast, is a small, isolated port town. Low-rise buildings sprawl out from the dockside. Rundown hotels, cheap restaurants and a few government offices are strung along a single potholed street.

But now the town is full of relatives of the ferry passengers. The pavements can't hold them, and cars move slowly through the crowds. In front of the port itself, which is sealed off by a line of riot police, the road junction is full. The nearby offices of El Salam Maritime Transport Company are shuttered.

Dressed mostly in the unassuming jallebeya and turbans of the Egyptian rural working class, the crowds awaiting news reflect a sad irony of this accident: those killed were not frequent travellers. Many were ambitious young men from rural families returning from jobs in the Gulf, where they had earned enough to get married and start a family. Others simply couldn't afford to fly.

"I'm here because of my uncle," says Saad Yassin, a short man in his late 30s with a fixed stare. He is wearing a brown jallebeya a little frayed at the neck and his mouth is set in a flat line. "I know that he was on the boat but I do not know whether he is alive or he is dead ... he was working in Saudi Arabia. It's been five years since the last time that we saw him."

A line of television cameras faces the crowd from the roof of a crumbling building opposite.

"We're waiting for them to bring the lists," says Muhammad, who is also waiting to know the fate of an uncle. "He was working in Kuwait, in the Agricultural University. He is -" Muhammad pauses and stutters at the present tense "- 30 years old. I talked to him before he left and so I know he was on the boat. They have brought in two groups so far today." A squat man in a leather jacket joins the group as Saad Yassin drifts away. "Two groups: one of 61, one of 50."

"The total so far is 350," says Muhammad. He is talking about the survivors; he doesn't mention the hundreds still unaccounted for.

In a dozen conversations, the sums are repeated like a mantra. But the numbers always come up short.

Meagre roll-call

Frustration is building, fuelled by the lack of information from officials and allegations that the boat had pushed on despite the fire, that passengers had been locked into their cabins and that the crew had escaped first.

The list comes at 1.30, read out on a tinny megaphone in a car park nearby. The crowd presses in, trying to hear, but most can't get close enough.

"This is stupid," says one man, looking up at the sky helplessly, "I can't hear the names! I don't know where she is." His arms are raised and his face is twisted. The people around him watch, mute, as unable to do anything for him as they are to help themselves. Close by, an old man is weeping openly. A space opens around him and someone takes his hand.

The frustration soon finds expression, and release. With the meagre roll-call complete, the crowd returns to the police line. Hands are waved and there is shouting. Somehow, very quickly, it escalates from fists to pebbles, to chunks of concrete and bottles which rain down on the police lines, clearing the street as the indiscriminate volleys crash around their targets.

The police throw back and fire a teargas canister. Then there is a lull.

"Welcome to Egypt." The greeting, delivered by a stout, unshaven man in a heavy dark green jallebeya, is fairly standard, but the undershirt pulled up over his nose to protect him from the gas is a new touch. "I'm from Shareya ... I came here to see about a relative when I heard about the accident from the television," he says. "I came yesterday and I waited here. But it was no use, he's dead."

He starts to explain but is interrupted by a fresh hail of rocks that whack into the road.

In the afternoon, 17 ambulances roar off towards the hospital. Through the frosted glass, huddled figures can be seen wrapped in blankets. Relatives and others follow as best they can on foot.

An hour later, one of the survivors staggers from the hospital and is half-carried, half-walked to a waiting station wagon.

"I was 12 hours in the water," he says . "I went from the ferry into the water, into the water," he is repeating himself, the words falling out.

"Twelve hours," echoes the man next to him. "Twelve hours. Leave him, he's exhausted. Enough questions." And he bundles him away into the car.